


They Were A Peach

by themidnightblues



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crazy, Experimental, F/M, I Don't Even Know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 13:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14473998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themidnightblues/pseuds/themidnightblues
Summary: “It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.”― Philip K. Dick





	They Were A Peach

It started out with, of all things, a jam jar. Well, no, let’s back up. It _started_ started out with a woven basket full of fresh peaches. The jar came after that. Of course.  
  
She had gone down to Market Street. Stalls of all sizes dotted the walks, selling clothes and jewelry and music and, the most heavenly product of all — fruit. She normally wouldn’t think this, but for what the fruit had led her to. Of course.  
  
It was her vacation, two weeks of it, Pete said. _Forced leave_ , Rose grumbled. _What am I supposed to do all day?_ she opined. _Anything but obsess!_ Pete had yelled, irritated. Rose had screeched in a way she never thought she would — the screech of a spoilt heiress. At least there wasn’t foot stomping. She’d turned on her heel and stormed out the door and, well, the Doctor had always given her a fresh, fresh peach when she was upset. She hopped in her car and turned toward Market Street. Of course.  
  
It wasn’t long and she had navigated her way through the crushing bodies, wincing in distaste as skin after skin brushed hers. The wrong skin, the wrong shoulder nudging into hers. Wrong, wrong, wrong everything! She growled as she felt another screech coming along. She’d been living the posh life too long, it was starting to get to her. At the end of the tunnel, through all the unpleasant obstacles and there, bright bright peaches, nestled in their little baskets. She’d only needed one, but she bought the whole bushel. Of course.  
  
The peaches hugged protectively to her chest, Rose barreled out of the crowd. She counts them, as she walks, feet directed toward her car, and there are fourteen. One for every day of her useless ‘vacation.’ She’d need them. Of course.  
  
She was in the car for five minutes, sobbing hysterically as she squeezed the first peach to her chest. The fragrance was overwhelming, just as the skin was so, so fragile. She watched, through her clouded eyes, as the skin mottled to match her heart. A small smile was followed, like a blade across the throat, by heavier, harder tears. _Hearts are like peaches, Doctor. You don’t hold them carefully and they break._ She’d said that to him, once, after Reinette and before the Cybermen. He’d squeezed her hand and said, _I’m sorry I bruised your peach_ but his eyes said, _I’m sorry about Reinette._ She’d forgiven him. Of course.  
   
A knock on the window startled her and she jerked, the peach squelching and juice just starting to run down her wrist. She wipes her eyes clumsily, mixes tears and peaches, before rolling down her window and asking, _Yes?_  
  
An older gentleman stood there, weight leaning heavily on a cane and asked, _You all right there, miss?_  
  
She dabbed her eyes once more and sniffed, turning and smiling at the man _. I’m always all right, of course_ , she said.  
  
The gentleman eyed her disbelievingly, but to Rose’s relief said nothing. He did, however, pull a jar from a bag and present it to her with a flourish. Smiling a strange smile that Rose found both alien and sweet, he said, _Take this. It’ll make you feel better_. Rose eyed the jar warily. But it was empty. The old man’s smiled widened, not like a shark but rather like the Doctor, eager and hungry to share something to make you feel good. _For your preserves, if you like_. Rose blinked. Of course.  
  
She took the jar with trembling fingers as the force of her tears pushed at her restraint. She smiled a smile of thanks and started the car. The old man disappeared into the crowds, or so Rose assumed. Could have gone into that storefront. She shrugged her shoulders, not really caring, cradling the jar in her lap. The Doctor loves jam, so she should make some jam. Of course.  
  
Her phone vibrated, blinking with a text. She glanced at the words _Comin’ round?_ from her mum. She shook her head. She’d gone round the bend a long time ago. Her mum didn’t mean that, or so she assumed, and she turned toward her flat. She really needed to make jam. Of course.  
  
It was difficult going, jar held in her lap with one hand, the other a death grip on a peach. She was sure she looked a fright. Mad woman, with wild hair, bleeding eyes, deranged obsession with a fruit. But she couldn’t let go. She hadn’t touched a peach in years, she couldn’t really say why, but sense memory had kicked in and she saw, felt, _heard_ the Doctor in the scent of the peach, in the feel of the fuzz on her palm. He was there and she was there and they were together inside that peach. Of course.  
   
And then she was there. Her keys were sitting on the end table near the door, her peaches and jar were in the kitchen and she was just standing there. Gazing. She supposed she was dazed, but maybe not. Dazed people don’t cry, because they’re dazed. Tears ran like rivulets of blood down her cheeks. She’d thought she’d numb herself. At least enough to get through the day. But the damn peach had other things to say and suddenly her living arrangements seemed so ludicrous. But she needed it. Otherwise it was all just too tight. Of course.  
  
She didn’t really have the materials to make jam. She really didn’t, she thought, as she looked around her space. It was a mansion, yes, her very own. But devoid of anything real. No walls to block her in, no second story to keep the ceiling so low. Just one big room painted bronze, with a four-poster in the middle, draped in Tardis blue gauze curtains and bedspread and flanked by two nightstands. There was a single-person table and one chair, Tardis blue, in the kitchen area. She’d have to make do with that. The floor might work as well, of course.  
  
Well, she’s way beyond the start, now, having passed the peaches and the jam. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, but they’d always cooked like this. The best concoctions came out of cobbling things together on your own, the Doctor’d always said. And peaches were them, so she couldn’t let some know-it-all dictate how she made their jam. Of course.  
  
She flew around like a dervish, throwing things in here, adjusting temperatures there and soon, she had to wait because it smelled delicious, but it looked like shite. She supposed it would congeal if she just set it aside. Of course.  
  
With nothing else to do but wait, Rose’s glance landed on the jar. It was slightly dirty. The kind of regal dirty that only old things in an antique shop got. Or an attic. She couldn’t put her preserves in there before it was cleaned, of course.  
   
It was there, just within reach, she and it on the floor because the jam making had flooded the table and chair. She bent to grasp it, pulled it to her. She was amazed it had kept the dust. It should have rubbed off on the drive. Shrugging, she swiped her thumb across it. It shimmered. Rose paused. When was a jar a jar anymore in her world? Of course.  
   
She lifted it carefully to eye-level and turned the glass thing slowly. Nothing. So she closed one eye, maneuvered her body just right to catch the fading light in through the window, and turned. Nothing. Her thumb slipped, just slightly, and the thing lit up like Christmas. Of course.  
   
Tingling started in that thumb. Not unpleasant, but not something Rose rather thought was good. In her experience, strange tingles from seemingly normal things were never good. Unless that seemingly normal thing was the Doctor. Of course.  
  
A smile flitted across her mouth at that and that was when she nearly dropped the jar, startled. The shimmering had chosen that moment to radiate out from her thumb, swirl up the jar and disappear under the lid. The particles moved to the middle of the jar and just floated there, sparkling merrily. And then a face, a beloved, befreckled face! She laughed through her tears or she cried through her laughter, she couldn’t tell. It didn’t really matter, though, because she was going insane. Of course.  
  
Then it spoke. The apparition, not the jar, she wasn’t that insane yet, thank you.  
  
_Blimey, the saleswoman **said** this preserve would take me back to happier days, but she didn’t mention happier days would come in the form of a floating head in the jam_. He stopped speaking for a moment and then grinned. He waved. _Hello!_  
  
Rose shrugged. It was her vacation. If she wanted to spend it speaking to a preserve jar, then she would. She smiled back. _Hello._  
  
They stayed like that for eons or seconds or even both at once. Just smiling. And then the dam broke. She talked and she talked and she laughed and she cried. She hugged the jar when her Doctor needed one and she laughed when he dropped his and she got a crotch shot. It went like this for hours or days. She knew the sun came and went. She also knew that his head was getting more corporeal. The top of his hair was sticking out of the jar. She could feel it, silky and soft. She could! She could feel it! Of course!  
  
And then she couldn’t stop laughing, even as the world spun. In the corner of her mind, she thought this couldn’t be good. She was laughing too much. The sun came and went, but the clock stayed at half five. Peaches filled the air, the scent stronger than before. She felt drunk. And then his head was out, his shoulders just emerging. He was being birthed by the jar, he was coming, he was going to be here and she was going to be here and maybe he could pull the Tardis through and then they’d be peaches together again! Of course.  
  
She called her mum, still cradling the jar. He was popped out to the waist now. She could smell his skin. She stroked his cheek as she babbled down the line, about the jar, and the dust, and now her Doctor was coming through. He said hello, Rose had held the phone to his mouth, but her mum pretended not to hear. But it was okay. The Doctor and she were always like that, of course.  
  
She hung up when her mum started asking her to come over, to put the jar down and come over to where she could be watched. Rose didn’t understand why. She focused on her Doctor, as he was knees out now.  
  
_They loomed us, you know. And I’d always wondered what it would be like to remember your birth_. His face blanched and a popping sound emanated from the jar. _For the life of me, I can’t imagine why._ She giggled. The bowl of peach jam was settled next to them, the Doctor leaning on her side as she spooned some into his mouth. It dribbled down, globs of it, but neither noticed. They didn’t notice when Pete burst in either, until it was too late. Of course.  
  
_Rose!_ he cried.  
  
They jerked their heads up and the Doctor smiled. _Petey, Pete, Petey, Pete, Pete! How’ya?_ Then he frowned. Rose did too.  
  
_The Doctor’s speakin’ to you, Pete. ‘S’not polite to ignore him._  
  
She watched as Pete shook his head. _No one else is here, sweetheart._ And before she could stop him, Pete strode over and grabbed the jar, shattering it on the floor. Rose screamed as she watched her Doctor get sucked back into the jar. And then silence. Terrible, horrible silence of the real world. She collapsed in a fit of tears. _It was hallucinogenic,_ he said. _You don’t have to take off work anymore,_ he said. His eyes were sad and huge in his face. He looked old, older than just a week would do, or a day. She didn’t know any more as her clock still read half five. She didn’t look around. The Doctor hadn’t really been there, of course.

* * *

 

The Doctor jerked awake, hearts pounding. He glanced around the console room, frantic, eyes searching. He spotted the preserve jar and lunged at it, jamming it to his eye, staring in. Just a jar and hardened leftover jam. Rose Petal jam, from Troixa, it was, but just jam all the same. Of course.  
                                              
He fell back, hitting the edge of the console, and took a deep, steadying breath. He was losing it. Even the console room smelled like peaches. He stopped. Furrowed his brow and breathed in deep once more. Peaches. He sniffed and sniffed and then looked down. There was a blob of jam on his blue suit coat. He gingerly scooped it up and stuck it in his mouth. Peach.  
   
His head was pounding, too. It never pounded after a sleep. He must have conked it falling down. A smile spread over his face, gigantic and real and _happy_. She’d told him about her jar and she’d been drawing him in, to her side. He just had to find another and he’d be able to draw her to his. Of course!  
   
Giggling madly, the Doctor lurched to his feet and danced around the console, switching switches and pumping pumps. He barely noticed when Martha walked into the room.  
   
Grin on her face, she asked enthusiastically, “Where are we going?”  
   
The Doctor glanced up, shining so brightly that Martha almost flinched, unexpected as it was. “To get Rose back!”  
   
He turned his face away, missing Martha’s shoulders slumping and her face deflating. “Of course.”  


* * *

 

Sleep had stopped coming and in the end, Rose took sabbatical, voluntary this time, of course. Couldn't be sleep deprived in the field. The jar was glued back together, hidden cleverly in a nook she'd built into her bed during the day, but set next to her in the bed at night. Her mum'd tried to get rid of the pieces, ranting that, _you need to move on! Got a great job, a great family, an' that bloke at work fancies ya!_ Rose didn't care about the bloke at work, of course.

She tenderly wiped the glass with her thumb, hopefully, as she did every night. This time, it sparked. The particles were a different color this go and she felt a great pull. Her smile bloomed brightly as her Doctor pulled her in because of course. 

**Author's Note:**

> Found some old stories I'd posted on a long forgotten fanfic site. I'm posting the best ones here, like this one.


End file.
